Equal Pay Day April 9. Why is pay equality still an issue in 2013?

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April 7, 2013 by Jan Stone

The proportion of wives earning more than their husbands has grown! In 1987, 18 percent of working wives whose husbands also worked earned more than their spouses; in 2009, the proportion was 29 percent. In 22 years women’s income over their husband’s increased a whopping 11%, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Wow! One wonders if the percentage of husbands who come home from work to make dinner, do the dishes, do the laundry, help the kids with homework and then get them ready for school the next morning before they go to comparable jobs has increased 11%.

I’m a betting woman. I say No. Way. We work harder, for less, and someone always finds a way to justify it, often having to do with our being the spouse who gets pregnant and gives birth. Being penalized for being the only sex that propagates the population makes sense how?

Isn’t gender inequality getting really old to everyone? C’mon guys. Put your egos aside and pay us equally. We’ll still work harder and longer and often more efficiently than men, and we’ll still likely give you most of the credit.

Here are some other findings regarding women’s rights to gender equality in pay:

Of all women who worked at some point during calendar year 2009, 59 percent worked full time and year round, compared with 41 percent in 1970. During the same period, the proportion of men who worked full time and year round rose slightly, from 66 to 68 percent. (Data were collected in the 1971 and 2010 Annual Social and Economic Supplements to the CPS and refer to work experience during the prior calendar year.)
Both the husband and wife were earners in 55 percent of married-couple families in 2009, up from 44 percent in 1967. Couples in which only the husband worked represented 18 percent of married-couple families in 2009, compared with 36 percent in 1967. (Data were collected in the 1968 and 2010 Annual Social and Economic Supplements to the CPS and reflect earnings and work experience of the prior calendar year.)